90. Bornholm Island Harbour [1911]

Undoubtedly, Arthur Segal, is one of the forerunners of the modern European painting, as a contemporary and active participant in the great artistic changes of the early 20th century. The Berlin art world was to become the main engine of innovation since the end of the 19th century. In 1892, the young painter began to attend the lectures of Berlin Academy of Art, in Eugen Bracht's class, and in the following years he attended specialized studies in Paris and Munich. The one who was to become the founder of avant-garde movements and one of the driving forces behind the development of the Romanian avant-garde in the 1920s, at the beginning of his career, was an artist confined to post-impressionist and neo-impressionist experiments. The most illustrative example that shaped Segal's specific style in the first stage of creation was his approach to the work of the Swiss painter Giovanni Segantini, with whom he came into contact in 1896, the year in which he began his study at the Academy of Art in Munich. In terms of technique, he adopted his pointillist manner, transposed into a more temperate style, unlike his great theorist, Georges Seurat. This persisted in Segal's compositions from 1902 to 1914 His closeness to the German Expressionists, particularly after his return to Berlin (1904), introduced him to Der Sturm group and especially into the New Secession (Die Neue Secession) organizers - Pechstein, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner or Tappert - and he himself becoming a founder member. A proponent of Fauvism, using the pointillist technique and elements of expressionism (both in oil painting and etching), by 1911 (the year this painting was done) Segal was an illustrious member of German modernism. The subject matter here is typical of Neo-Impressionist imagery, with the marine (harbour) subject often found in Seurat or Signac or Van Gogh

References

"Arthur Segal, 1875-1944" (catalog), Argon Verlag, Berlin, 1987

Dimensions

width 88.5 cm, height 70 cm, custom 70 × 88,5 cm

Description

oil on canvas, signed bottom left, with black, "A. Segal"

Dating

1911

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